Trump versus Haavaahd (1184 words)

By Walter E. Block

Libertarians favor the legalization of all drugs, including not just marijuana, but also cocaine, opium, heroin, fentanyl, for adults only, of course. Ignorant critics deduce from this stance that we support their actual use, and indulge. God forbid. Libertarians favor the legalization of prostitution, pornography, sado-masochistic relationships between consenting adults. Malicious detractors claim that we all engage in every one of these activities and urge others to do so. Ditto.

Something of the same sort of thing now seems to be occurring in the battle between Trump and Harvard, MIT, Columbia and other such institutions. The President of the United States wishes to encourage these prestigious universities to allow viewpoint diversity and stop anti-Semitism and the wokesters maintain he is attacking academic freedom.

First of all, what is so great about academic freedom? Why should professors enjoy this privilege, when it applies to no other occupation? Consider plumber’s freedom. You call the plumber to your house to clear up your stuffed toilet, and he begins working on your sink. You protest. He replies: “I have plumbers’ freedom! I can do as I wish.”  There is no such thing as doctor’s freedom, which would enable him to focus on your knee when you have a problem with your elbow. Lawyer’s freedom? You want a divorce and he starts talking about tax law. I’m thinking of starting up Block University. I hire you as a professor, and your agreed upon job is limited to extoling the virtues of yours truly. You don’t have a smidgen of academic freedom to do anything else but that. Did either of us violate any licit law? Of course not. Academic freedom is not the holiest of holies. It can be justifiably abrogated by contract.

Secondly, Mr. Trump is not at all violating academic freedom. Harvard is fully justified in pursuing this goal, but with its own money, not that mulcted from the taxpayer. He is not at all “demanding” that Harvard cease and desist from being an intellectual cesspool where virtually only one shade of opinion is tolerated on Israel and anti-Semitism runs rampant. If I can put words into his mouth, he is wishing them all the good luck in the world in continuing to do just that; but with their own dime, not with the hard-earned funds of the taxpayer.

This defense of academic freedom comes with particular ill-grace from Haavaahd, bastion of political correctness and wokeism; where use of the wrong pronoun can be fatal to an academic career. Support for Israel? Fughedaboudit!

Another criticism of President Trump is that his government does not clearly define “viewpoint diversity.” Asks the Wall Street Editorial board, which really ought to know better: “Does this mean the English Department must hire more Republican faculty or Shakespeare scholars?” No, it does not mean that at all. Rather, it implies that they hire at least the very first such professor, for a start. For in all likelihood, there is no such academic now there on the faculty. Nor, even, is this poet and playwright much discussed; he is, after all a dead white male. I might be exaggerating here a bit, but this is just the sort of despicable thing that prevails at many of the universities now under the Trump microscope.

Harvard has 2400 professors. Are any of them conservatives or libertarian? Yes, there were Harvey Mansfield and Robert Nozick in the past, and there might still be a handful on campus at present. But there is a serious question as to whether this august institution can boast as many as the Sodom and Gomorrah 10. And Harvard has the effrontery to whine about academic freedom based on taxpayer dollars. Their motto seems to be “A professoriate that looks like American.” Strange, no “progressive” ever applies anything like this to the NBA or the NFL. Trump, a weirdo he, maintains that if Harvard is to be the beneficiary of federal dollars and tax exemption, at least a significant part of its faculty should think just a little bit more like America. This financial largesse is based on being in the so called public good. But the extant of the Marxist, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, woke, left-wing environmentalist situation on campus certainly does not even come close to fitting that bill, however defined.

Another grievance is that if these monies are taken away from Harvard, its research will suffer, and more people will die of cancer and other dread diseases. Stuff and nonsense. Is its medical school the only one capable of such an undertaking? Of course not. And, since its hiring decisions are based upon affirmative action, it will hardly be as effective as others, to which Mr. Trump can transfer these funds.

These critics are concerned “that the government may not use federal funds to coerce parties to surrender their constitutional rights. That is what the Administration is doing by demanding that Harvard accede to ‘viewpoint diversity.’”

First of all, there is no “coercion” going on here. Harvard is just as free to go on its merry way as before, promoting Marxism, etc., but with its own funds. A totalitarian would put these people in jail for undermining civilization in this way. Trump threatens no such action. Second, since when did it become a “constitutional right” to espouse wokeism with other people’s money?

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Expression (FIRE) ranked the Crimson University the very last on its list of free speech. In our past unsavory history, the motto was: “Do not suffer a witch to live.” Nowadays, thanks to the socialist takeover of our institutions of higher learning, it has become: “Do not suffer a micro aggression to be uttered and unpunished.”

Here is one argument against Donald righteously pulverizing Harvard and other such institutions of higher learning: it will set a problematic precedent. Suppose someone like Chuck Schumer, AOC or Bernie Sanders becomes our next president. Then, according to this contention, all bets would be off. Havoc would ensue if Trump’s precedent is emulated, only in the other direction.

There are two things wrong with this objection. First the practical one. Our universities, apart from maybe a dozen honorable exceptions, are already a cesspool of Marxist anti-Semitic group think. It is indeed difficult to see how the next Democratic President could seriously worsen the present situation.

Second, we are called upon not only to worry about precedents set up now which might bite us in the future, but to also to address a primordial question of justice. Is Donald righteous in refusing to spend vast amounts of mulcted tax money to support extreme left wing professors who sneer at most of them? And when put in this manner, the answer is obvious. Let these pinkos profess political correct wokism to their heart’s content — with their own money.

In this imbroglio between the most prestigious university on the planet and Mr. Trump, every modicum of justice is on the side of the latter.

Sources

Wall Street Journal. 2025. “Donald Trump Tries to Run Harvard.” April 16, p. A16